


Date Night

by ShayneyL



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Baby, F/M, Family, Fluff, Post-Endgame, Prompt Fic, Writer's Month 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26036344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShayneyL/pseuds/ShayneyL
Summary: Harry Kim thinks he can take care of baby Miral. Tom Paris thinks he can't. B'Elanna Torres just wants a night off.Takes place in the original "Endgame" timeline, whereVoyagerdoesn't get home for 23 years.
Relationships: Harry Kim & B'Elanna Torres, Harry Kim & Tom Paris, Tom Paris/B'Elanna Torres
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	Date Night

**Author's Note:**

> Writer's Month 2020, Day 21. The prompt is "family."

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Tom was exhausted. Totally, completely, utterly exhausted. He hated to even think it, but he was beginning to suspect he wasn't cut out for parenthood. He was starting to look forward to his bridge and sickbay shifts, so he could get some peace and quiet, away from the baby. He and B'Elanna were permanently on different shifts now. He hardly saw her any more. When they were off-duty together, like now, their time was spent sleeping or taking care of Miral.

The door chime sounded. "Get that, Tom," B'Elanna called. "I'm feeding the baby."

It was considered polite on _Voyager_ to answer the door in person, but Tom was too tired to be polite. "Come," he said, ordering the door open.

"Tom?" It was Harry. He looked around at the chaos that was the Paris-Torres quarters post-baby. "I can come back if it's not a good time."

"As good a time as any," Tom said. "Have a seat."

Harry came in, moved a pile of folded diapers, and sat next to Tom. "You sure this is a good time? You don't look so hot."

"I'm just tired. So, so tired. Miral keeps waking up, and waking us up." 

"I think that's what babies are supposed to do, Tom."

"Nobody told me!" Actually, that wasn't true. A lot of people had told him. He thought they were exaggerating.

"It'll be over soon," Harry said. "You might even find you miss it."

"No I won't," Tom muttered.

"You just need some time off," Harry said. "Tell you what. Let me take care of the baby tonight. You can take B'Elanna out to dinner on the holodeck or something."

"You?" Tom said. "You don't have any kids. You have no idea how hard it is to take care of a baby."

Harry shrugged. "It can't be that hard. People have been doing this for millions of years."

"Hah! I'll bet you a week of rations that you can't handle it."

"You're on," Harry said. "Take the whole night off. If I have to call you or anyone else to take over before 0900, you win. Otherwise, I win."

"I'd love to fleece you of your rations, Harry, but I just can't."

"Yes, you can," B'Elanna said. She came up behind Harry and plopped Miral into his arms.

Tom opened his mouth to protest, but B'Elanna's look stopped him. Apparently, she wanted a night off. Before Tom knew it, he was headed to the holodeck, B'Elanna on his arm, Harry left with Miral and a long list of instructions.

They had a lot of holodeck time saved up, because neither of them had had any time for leisure since the baby was born. B'Elanna wanted a restaurant; Tom picked Sandrine's, for old time's sake.

"Are you sure about this?" Tom asked over the shrimp cocktail. "Harry knows nothing about babies."

"He'll be fine. I want to relax and eat an entire meal uninterrupted. We can comm him to check in now and then. And watch them on the video monitor." B'Elanna held up a padd.

The video monitor! He'd forgotten about it, but his beautiful, brilliant wife hadn't. He took the padd. It showed the bedroom. It was empty. Tom switched it to the living room. Harry was pacing slowly with Miral in his arms. She was crying fussily, and Harry was singing to her.

"I didn't know Harry could sing," B'Elanna said.

"I didn't, either." Harry's voice was pleasant, though not powerful. Miral seemed to like it. Instead of moving on to the ear-shattering wails Tom was expecting, she went to sleep. Harry put her down, and began tidying the cluttered living room. He was such a neat freak.

Well. Maybe they'd get an uninterrupted dinner out of this after all. Tom put the padd aside, and turned his attention to the onion soup.

It wasn't until they'd eaten the crown roast of lamb with wild rice and were working on the chocolate soufflé that Tom thought to check in on Harry and Miral again.

They were sleeping. Tom had a nervous moment when he thought Harry might have fallen asleep with Miral next to him on the couch, but no, he was doing it right. He'd brought the bassinet out of the bedroom and put it next to the couch. She was lying in it on her back, in the approved position. He showed the padd to B'Elanna.

"Cute," she said. "I give it five more minutes, tops."

Tom knew what she meant. Miral was due to wake up hungry about now. Sure enough, she began fussing, then crying. Harry got up. He tried changing her diaper first; when she kept crying, he went to the bathroom, presumably to wash his hands, then went to the stasis unit and came back with a bottle.

"Took him awhile, but he figured it out," B'Elanna said. "Look, he's even burping her."

"He doesn't have a cloth under her," Tom said, reaching toward his combadge.

B'Elanna stopped him. "He'll figure it out. Or not, in which case you win the bet."

As expected, Miral spit up on Harry's shoulder. Tom half-expected him to panic and call him or the Doc, but he only made a face, then laughed. Tom found himself laughing, too. Harry wouldn't be making that mistake again. He put down the padd and ordered digestifs.

B'Elanna took a sip of her Saurian brandy. "I hate to break this to you, Tom, but I think you're going to lose this bet."

"I didn't think he had it in him. A week's worth of rations! I'm sorry, B'Elanna." It wasn't really _his_ rations anymore, it was _their_ rations.

"Don't be," she said. "It was worth it. Now we know we can trust him with the baby. Besides, Harry will probably spend the rations on stuff for Miral anyway."

"We'll get more date nights out of this," Tom realized.

"And we still have the rest of tonight."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yes." Tom gave the order to the computer while B'Elanna extended their holodeck time. "Run program Paris-23." God, he'd been dreaming of this for so long.

Sandrine's disappeared. In its place was a lavish bedroom. "Perfect," B'Elanna said. She stripped down to her underwear, went to the huge bed on the central dais, and jumped in.

Tom followed, scattering clothes in his wake. He fell on the bed beside her with a sigh of contentment. Within ten seconds they were both sound asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I consider this canon-compliant. A lot of fanfic has Harry a lifelong bachelor, clueless about kids, unable to keep even a plant alive. But in one timeline, he was engaged at age 23. In another, he was married with a son before he was 30. 
> 
> Moreover, in "Before and After," we find out Harry's great with kids. Linnis feels uncomfortable with Andrew and fears she's a bad parent, but Harry's wonderful with the baby. I think Harry's probably better with kids than Tom or B'Elanna. Maybe because he had better parents than they did. 
> 
> That's my story and I'm sticking to it! (Unless it's inconvenient to the plot, in which case I'm throwing it out the nearest airlock. ;-)


End file.
